Volume Viii Part 6 (1/2)

SUM. No more of this, I hate it to the death.

No such deformer of the soul and sense, As is this swinish d.a.m.n'd horn drunkenness.

Bacchus, for thou abusest so earth's fruits, Imprison'd live in cellars and in vaults.

Let none commit their counsels unto thee; Thy wrath be fatal to thy dearest friends; Unarmed run upon thy foemen's swords; Never fear any plague, before it fall: Dropsies and watery tympanies haunt thee; Thy lungs with surfeiting be putrified, To cause thee have an odious stinking breath; Slaver and drivel like a child at mouth; Be poor and beggarly in thy old age; Let thine own kinsmen laugh when thou complain'st, And many tears gain nothing but blind scoffs.

This is the guerdon due to drunkenness: Shame, sickness, misery follow excess.

BAC. Now on my honour, Sim Summer, thou art a bad member, a dunce, a mongrel, to discredit so wors.h.i.+pful an art after this order. Thou hast cursed me, and I will bless thee. Never cap of Nipitaty[94] in London come near thy n.i.g.g.ardly habitation! I beseech the G.o.ds of good fellows.h.i.+p thou may'st fall into a consumption with drinking small beer!

Every day may'st thou eat fish, and let it stick in the midst of thy maw, for want of a cup of wine to swim away in. Venison be _venenum_ to thee: and may that vintner have the plague in his house that sells a drop of claret to kill the poison of it! As many wounds may'st thou have as Caesar had in the senate-house, and get no white wine to wash them with; and to conclude, pine away in melancholy and sorrow, before thou hast the fourth part of a dram of my juice to cheer up thy spirits.

SUM. Hale him away, he barketh like a wolf: It is his drink, not he, that rails on us.

BAC. Nay soft, brother Summer, back with that fool. Here is a snuff in the bottom of the jack, enough[95] to light a man to bed withal: we'll leave no flocks behind us, whatsoever we do.

SUM. Go drag him hence, I say, when I command.

BAC. Since we must needs go, let's go merrily. Farewell, Sir Robert Toss-pot: sing amain _Monsieur Mingo_, whilst I mount up my a.s.s.

[_Here they go out, singing, ”Monsieur Mingo,” as they came in_.

WILL SUM. Of all the G.o.ds, this Bacchus is the ill-favoured'st mis-shapen G.o.d that ever I saw. A pox on him! he hath christened me with a new nickname of Sir Robert Toss-pot that will not part from me this twelvemonth. Ned fool's clothes are so perfumed with the beer he poured on me, that there shall not be a Dutchman within twenty miles, but he'll smell out and claim kindred of him. What a beastly thing it is to bottle up all in a man's belly, when a man must set his guts on a gallon-pot last, only to purchase the alehouse t.i.tle of _boon companion_. ”Carouse; pledge me, and you dare! 'Swounds, I'll drink with thee for all that ever thou art worth!” It is even as two men should strive who should run farthest into the sea for a wager. Methinks these are good household terms, ”Will it please you to be here, sir? I commend me to you! Shall I be so bold as trouble you? Saving your tale, I drink to you.” And if these were put in practice but a year or two in taverns, wine would soon fall from six-and-twenty pound a tun, and be beggar's money--a penny a quart, and take up his inn with waste beer in the alms-tub. I am a sinner as others: I must not say much of this argument. Every one, when he is whole, can give advice to them that are sick. My masters, you that be good fellows, get you into corners, and sup off your provender closely:[96] report hath a blister on her tongue! open taverns are tell-tales. _Non peccat quicunque potest pecca.s.se negare_.

SUM. I'll call my servants to account, said I?

A bad account; worse servants no man hath.

_Quos credis fidos effuge, tutis eris_: The proverb I have prov'd to be too true, _Totidem domi hostes habemus quot servos_.

And that wise caution of Democritus, _Servus necessaria possessio, non autem dulcis_: Nowhere fidelity and labour dwells.

How[97] young heads count to build on had I wist.

Conscience but few respect, all hunt for gain: Except the camel have his provender Hung at his mouth, he will not travel on.

Tyresias to Narcissus promised Much prosperous hap and many golden days, If of his beauty he no knowledge took.

Knowledge breeds pride, pride breedeth discontent: Black discontent, thou urgest to revenge: Revenge opes not her ears to poor men's prayers.

That dolt destruction is she without doubt, That hales her forth and feedeth her with nought.

Simplicity and plainness, you I love!

Hence, double diligence, thou mean'st deceit: Those that now serpent-like creep on the ground, And seem to eat the dust, they crouch so low-- If they be disappointed of their prey, Most traitorously will trace their nails and sting.

Yea, such as, like[98] the lapwing, build their nests In a man's dung, come up by drudgery, Will be the first that, like that foolish bird, Will follow him with yelling and false cries.

Well[99] sung a shepherd, that now sleeps in skies,[100]

”Dumb swans do love, and not vain chattering pies.”

In mountains, poets say, Echo is hid, For her deformity and monstrous shape: Those mountains are the houses of great lords, Where Stentor, with his hundred voices, sounds A hundred trumps at once with rumour fill'd.

A woman they imagine her to be, Because that s.e.x keep nothing close they hear; And that's the reason magic writers frame[101]

There are more witches women, than of men; For women generally, for the most part, Of secrets more desirous are than men[102], Which having got, they have no power to hold.

In these times had Echo's first fathers liv'd, No woman, but a man, she had been feign'd (Though women yet will want no news to prate); For men (mean men), the sc.u.m and dross of all, Will talk and babble of they know not what, Upbraid, deprave, and taunt they care not whom.

Surmises pa.s.s for sound approved truths; Familiarity and conference, That were the sinews of societies, Are now for underminings only us'd; And novel wits, that love none but themselves, Think wisdom's height as falsehood slyly couch'd, Seeking each other to o'erthrow his mate.

O friends.h.i.+p! thy old temple is defac'd: Embracing envy,[103] guileful courtesy, Hath overgrown fraud-wanting honesty.

Examples live but in the idle schools: Sinon bears all the sway in princes' courts.

Sickness, be thou my soul's physician; Bring the apothecary Death with thee.

In earth is h.e.l.l, h.e.l.l true[104] felicity, Compared with this world, the den of wolves!

AUT. My lord, you are too pa.s.sionate without cause.

WIN. Grieve not for that which cannot be recall'd.

Is it your servant's carelessness you 'plain?

Tully by one of his own slaves was slain.

The husbandman close in his bosom nurs'd A subtle snake, that after wrought his bane.

AUT. _Servos fideles liberalitas facit_; Where on the contrary, _servitutem_-- Those that attend upon illiberal lords, Whose covetise yields nought else but fair looks, Even of those fair looks make their gainful use.